The truth about the Enos Nkala we loved to hate?

Dead or alive the  mere mention of the name Enos Nkala, triggers a lot of memories among the people of Zimbabwe. To the ruling party comrades in the capital, he was a hero. To his own flesh and blood  in Matabeleland South, his name is synonymous to that of a demon if not the devil himself. Which ever way you look at him, Nkala' historic significance or insignificant is undeniable. Most of us would be quick to judge Nkala  in his old self and yet forget that this man made a turn around.

                                                 A case for the two Nkalas

What do I mean by "turn around" and why is it important for Zimbabweans to know? There are credible sources that suggest that the late Enos  Nkala died a born again Christian.  I do not doubt that theory since I knew people who knew him closely in the mid 90s. At no point do I want to use that to justify him in anyway shape, or form. If there is an justice or lack of it is not within my jurisdiction. I am just a mere writer, who tries to make sense of things believe it or not. Coming to the point, the people of Matabeleland and the Zimbabweans at large have a duty to seek both justification and apology from the party that Enos Nkala helped establish. (ZANU PF)  This is for the atrocities that he and his party at the time caused.  (Born again or not ) No amount of words can justify such enormous evil and brutality in modern times. Although history has it that Nkala helped form ZANU Pf because of his strong hate for the Dr Joshua Nkomo, he is not blamed for that.

What he is blamed for is zealously and publicly unleashing a reign of terror and brutality on the civilians who supported the ZAPU leader Dr Joshua Nkomo in mid eighties. Nothing wrong  about  choosing  a political party. I want to be clear here. However as we all know that Nkala would leave the ruling party un ceremoniously after the infamous Willowvale car scandal in the late 80s or early 90s. (Not sure here) This scandal rocked the government so much that one of the minister who was involved  committed suicide not too long after that. It must have been Maurice Nyagumbo.  Nkala left the government and the party as a bitter man. This marked the end of his political career. He still had blood on his hands regardless. To this day his homestead in Filabusi is still known as komuzi omubi. "At the evil man's place"

In the past few years in many intervals we started hearing about Nkala in the headlines news again. He was threatening to spill the beans about some issues concerning the infamous Gukurahundi period. This is an issue which he was most hated for, and real because of his public confession that he would "wash away being a Ndebele if there was such soap"  When he started to surface gain, he was very blunt about the way President Mugabe and ZANU PF were handling things in the country. He even confessed that one day he would march in protest to Mugabe's rule. He said that was not what they had in mind when they formed ZANIP PF. He further said that Mugabe was now a different man from what he was back then. In short he had nothing good to say about this present ZANU PF. He was heard saying that some truth would come after he is dead. Sources said he wrote a  tell all book which could be realized anytime, now that he is dead.

It is a reasonable thing to associate ZANU PF with Enos Nkala at any point and time just for the fact that the party was formed in his house. Period! Although Nkala and Mugabe where still "friends" God knows for what reason, Nkala  never made an effort to rejoin or show support for the party even in all theses heated and tightly contested elections ever including this last one. The question would be why was he given a hero status, when he did not want it? What gain did Mugabe and the ruling party have in affording him that status? The answer is simple, to divide the people of Matabeleland one more time. Not just to divide them but to make them feel the pain once again for voting MDC T in this past elections. Guess what, this plan worked because we were all once again angry about Enos Nkala's ghost.  Whether he was born gain or not is not the issue here. The issue is did he die a ZANU PF man or not ? In short poor  Enos Nkala was used as a ZANU Pf scape goat to inflict pain to the people of Matabeleland . Nkala should have changed his name after conversion like Saul who changed to Paul. To be continued!